The Weight Issue: A Letter From the Editor

The way we—the media, the general public, friends, family, doctors, hiring managers, strangers on the internet—think and talk about weight and health is broken.

It’s not news that your weight and health are linked. The problem is that we assume that losing weight will always make us healthier and gaining weight will always make us less healthy. The truth is that, while your weight can impact your health, it’s certainly not the only thing that impacts your health. And focusing on weight loss as the most important solution to living a healthier life, above all else, no matter what… well, is often ineffective, to start (see Why Diets Fail and Why It's Not Productive to Just Tell a Patient 'You Have to Lose Weight' for more on that).

Much worse, prioritizing weight loss as the single most important path to health can be harmful, in part because it perpetuates a number of damaging myths. Like the myth that a person’s weight is easily changeable or just a matter of willpower. Or that there’s a moral value tied to size. That if you are a bigger person, then the only thing you should be focusing on is losing weight, before anything else, and by any means. That people with bigger bodies are less worthy of dignity and respect than people with smaller bodies.

These myths influence the way we treat ourselves and others. The focus on weight and the pursuit of a certain type of physical body for aesthetic or health reasons can devalue other kinds of health—like mental health. And people with bigger bodies face bigotry and fat-phobia on a daily basis: In doctor’s offices, in the workplace, walking down the street. Our society rewards people for having smaller bodies, even if the behavior that leads to existing in a smaller body isn’t healthy or sustainable.

So today we’re publishing The Weight Issue, a collection of stories intended to challenge how we think about weight and health, in an effort to move the discussion to a healthier and more helpful place.

As part of this package, we’re launching our very first digital cover, featuring cover model Tess Holliday. The cover story, Tess Holliday’s Health Is None of Your Business, by writer Ashley C. Ford, is an awesome conversation between two smart women who talk about, among other things, concern trolls, mental health, and accessible fashion.

Tess Holliday identifies as a fat woman; she recently published a memoir, The Not So Subtle Art of Being a Fat Girl: Loving the Skin You’re In. We chose to feature her and give her a platform because she has insightful things to say about thriving in a world that devalues bodies of size. We also chose to feature her because size representation is necessary, especially for a national health media brand that can help guide the conversation about what it means to be healthy and how to make health accessible. We want to drive home that you don’t know how healthy or unhealthy a person is just by looking at them, you don’t know what their health goals and priorities are, and you don’t know what they’ve already done or are planning to do for their health going forward. And moreover, that concern trolling—using a person’s perceived health to justify making them feel bad about themselves—isn’t just counterproductive, it’s abusive.

Our mission is to help people live healthier lives. In order to do that, we need to make it clear that wellness is for everyone, whatever you look like, no matter where you are in your health journey, or regardless of what your health goals are. If your goal is to lose weight, that’s fine—we have plenty of evidence-based information about that. If your goal is to ignore your weight completely, that’s also fine. Only you and your doctor know what healthy means for you. Your body, your business.

The bottom line is that anyone and everyone can benefit from understanding accurate information about their bodies, and participating in healthy activities, like eating nutritious food, getting exercise, sleeping well, nurturing relationships, and tending to their mental health. There is no weight—or weight loss—requirement to ride.

How Should a Health Brand Talk About Weight?SELF was launched in 1979 as one of the very first women’s health and fitness magazines. In our 40-year history, we’ve published stories, headlines, and pictures that contributed to a culture of weight stigma and unrealistic body expectations. This piece lays out how we plan to do better in the future. It includes a style guide for how to discuss weight, health, and bodies that we’ve been working on internally for years, but hope that in publishing publicly will hold us accountable and keep us consistent in our approach going forward.

When Losing Weight Is the Unhealthy Choice: Essay SeriesGuest editor Ijeoma Oluo assigned and edited four essays loosely tied to the theme of choosing not to lose weight. We asked her to do this because of her own beautiful writing on this topic. Each writer tackles this theme from a slightly different perspective, and each story is worth spending real time with:

Everyday Athletes Talk About What Strength Means to ThemThis gorgeous photo series, shot by photographer Heather Hazzan and produced and written by Nora Whelan, is a testament to the idea that fitness and wellness should be for everyone, whatever you look like, what your body is capable of, or what size you are.

The Science on Weight and HealthSELF senior health editor Sarah Jacoby digs into a tremendous volume of research in this massive report. Think of it as an exceptionally in-the-weeds resource for anyone curious about what the science actually says and shows—including what we know for sure, and what we don’t actually know at all.

Why Weight Loss Diets FailNutrition researcher Kevin Klatt examines his own history with significant weight loss, and explores the research behind why sustainable weight loss is so exceptionally difficult.